Life of ‘business suits and fake smiles’ fruitless, empty

Editor’s Note: Views expressed in guest columns and letters to the editor reflect the views of the author, not the views of The State News.

My dear colleagues, I meet you at the crossroads of pain and contempt to speak to the devil within you.

He is the conniving bastard who dresses you in business suits and fake smiles to achieve a fruitless career. He is the snake who promises full pockets but leaves you dry and hollow. But above all, he is the temptation to compromise — to settle for a lesser life. I say, back to hell with this monster.

Many of us choose the chains we enslave ourselves in. For decades, the movers of the world have bought the tickets to their own regrettable fates.

Men have lied to themselves to reach these undesirable ends, telling themselves, “the money is good in this field” or “it’s a way of making an honest living.” Money is an empty promise; the pursuit of it is a game that never ends and has no winners. As for an honest living, there is nothing honest about working a job you dislike. In fact, that’s about as far from honest as you get. Work should be one’s pride, not a collection of tokens to be traded.

This isn’t life, it’s a colorless chore we’ve been desensitized to. As you awake and peer into the mirror, do you see the charisma of a passionate student? Or are your eyes embittered and legs shaken from walking to the classes you oppose?

I can only assume the majority lie in the unwilling slew of students forced to regurgitate a curriculum of material that is memorized and quickly forgotten.

If your knuckles are white with frustration, you are correct to feel this way.

It doesn’t need to be like this. We are here, alive, and should do exactly that which we desire to do.
Left cold and discouraged by cruel occupations, humanity searches for an answer to explain such pain.

The problem is, we’re looking in the wrong places. Some have looked in the bottoms of whiskey bottles. Others envelope themselves in an endless hunt for the “right one” to feel completed.

I must confess these actions all amount to waste — a heap of manufactured ecstasy to mask reality’s stench before our very nostrils.

Perhaps if we made our first marriage dedicated to our work — which is eternal and cannot be broken — our feelings of insecurity and resentment would drift away.

This might sound radical to you, but how can it not in this corrupt society? We mustn’t let the stars be plucked from our eyes; the stars that remind us life can be amazing.

Am I wrong? Is it so absurd to live for another reason? How can you be so sure the way you live is correct? If this is so wrong, please smite me. As for now, I’ll remain free.

Look around you. Scores of college students are enrolled in programs and majors they’re on the fence to even committing to. Grim, pale faces of a confused youth populate the country. Curiosities of what to do with one’s life crowd our minds, but a solid answer never comes.

If thought about scientifically, it truly is a pressing question. Primal necessities of food and shelter now are easily met and no longer are a burden to obtain. Since we’ve conquered meeting our biological needs, how should we employ the remainder of our time? What should we do?

We are left with two crucial options:

a) Bathe in your passion, and seek to do all that fills your world with joy. Pleasure is found in the doing, not the having.

b) Settle for a dull occupation with promising financial security and maintain a comfortable life. Fulfillment is achieved through the size of the wallet.

Our souls are on the cusp of being sent off the edge into the gallows to feed the greed of old corporate men. But a salvation exists within the infinity of your mind. Enter it.

Somewhere within lies the answer to this place. Our relationship with the universe should never entail a daily means to an end. There is a better world. There’s more. A dull occupation is a relative concept. A wondrous career to me might be petty to you, and vice versa.

I’m simply insisting to abstain from settling for a job you’re good at and instead make your career something you wildly care about.

Tyler Burt is a guest columnist at The State News and a supply chain management junior. Reach him atburttyle@msu.edu.